I'll Be Your Alibi My Baby
by Rosebud5
Summary: Based on the episode "King's Castle," Paige realizes Mike is, in fact coming apart at the seams... Both literally and figuratively. He's broken, he's lost, and he's certainly anything but the green "Levi" he was from a few months ago. Can she find the old Mike hidden somewhere beneath this new hurting heart? One shot. Pike pairing.


Hey guys! So I kinda wrote this in my Music and Culture class because my professor was just droning on and on and _on... _And my Pike feels started to shoot high as a sky scraper and this happened. So. Yes. It takes place during the "King's Castle" episode after Mike returns from jail and Paige confronts him about "acting" like Briggs's friend. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Graceland, and "I'll be your alibi my baby" is a lyric from "Fly, Fly Away" from _Catch Me If You Can_. And thank you to the anonymous reviewer to corrected my setting of this fic!

~Rosey

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**I'll Be Your Alibi My Baby**

"What if we're wrong?" Mike Warren mumbled weakly to Paige Arkin as he headed towards the door of Paige's room. His stab wound was throbbing painfully from where Bello had mauled it...as if it wasn't painful enough already...and he felt as if he was moments away from passing out cold on the floor.

"We aren't," Paige whispered, stopping him in his tracks. "There's no way Paul Briggs is any of those things... A junkie, a murderer... There's absolutely no way-"

"Okay, Paige," Mike mumbled in defeat as he leaned heavily against the doorframe. "I'm not agreeing with or denying anything, okay? Look, I... I feel a little um... I should sit down for a minute..." And suddenly the floor was rushing towards his face, his ears were whooshing loudly, and his vision spun dangerously.

"Hey, hey! Mike!" Gentle hands steadied him... The same gentle hands that caught him a few hours ago when he returned from jail... _God, she smells so nice... Like vanilla and apples and shampoo..._

"Mike," Paige's voice was right by his ears now, and he found himself being lead towards his room...his bed...though the world was still a confusing mess of colors and sound. Was it always this long of a walk towards his bedroom from hers? "Mike, you're bleeding through your shirt... Oh God, Mikey..."

Mike felt himself being laid back on his own bed against the pillows, and Paige's fingers were fumbling at the buttons on his shirt. Loopy from pain, Mike gave a weak smile. "You're not going to buy me dinner first?"

"Shut up," she grumbled, pulling open his shirt and gingerly putting a shaky hand to his wounds. "Oh, Mike..."

"'M fine," he whispered, swallowing thickly. "'M okay..."

"Our definitions of 'okay' must be drastically different," she whispered softly, her blue eyes shining with worry.

"Don't worry about me," Mike weakly closed his eyes, his head starting to clear now that he was laying down. "I'm just a rat, remember?"

Paige was quiet for a moment before gently pushing a lock of his hair behind his ear. "I shouldn't have called you that. I said a thousand times I was on your side... And then I turned around and left you broken in a hospital bed."

"'S okay," he mumbled; he would never admit how much her abandoning him hurt. "I would have been pretty angry, too."

"Still," she sighed, going to get a cloth from the bathroom. "I am on your side, Warren. I really am. Just... I'm on Briggs's side too."

"That's my problem," Mike whispered. "I've always been on his side, I think. I owe him my life a thousand times over and... It's hard to suspicion someone who saved your butt."

"It's a nice butt to save, too," Paige offered him a tired smile as she started to clean the area around the wound. "You didn't bust any stitches, so that's good. Just residual bleeding. You're going to be bruised up pretty badly too."

"Okay," Mike shrugged a little, his face pale, his eyes red-rimmed and exhausted.

Paige bit her lip as she finished cleaning the wound, reapplying a new bandage. "What's happened to you, Levi?"

"I got stabbed?" Mike looked up dryly, arching an eyebrow.

"That's not what I meant," Paige rolled her eyes. "You aren't the same guy I knew a few months ago. You aren't the Mike Warren who went for pleasure jogs at six A.M. or who asked Johnny about the 'marijuana farmer' or who chased down a guy for stealing a taco. You're... Broken, Mike. And that scares me."

Mike huffed weakly and shook his head. "Not broken. Just not so green."

Paige frowned and finished bandaging his wound before scooting to lay back beside him on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. "We joke about that too much. You're not that green. Certainly not any more, anyway."

Mike just grunted a little, sleepily, sadly, not opening his eyes. Paige bit her lip at the reaction, turning on her side and supporting herself on her elbow. "Hey," she said softly. "Let me see those blue eyes."

Slowly, Mike turned his head towards Paige and opened his eyes. Paige felt her heart break when she saw how the pools of blue no longer shone with the passion and love for his job they usually did. Instead, they were dulled and tired, making him look much older and sicker than any twenty-something-year-old should ever look. Gently, she reached out and ran her fingers over his cheek, and then reached in her pocket for the paper six-year-old Mike Warren wrote. She read over the words with a faint smile on her face, tracing the letters with her fingertips, having to grin at how precious little Mike had been. _How precious he is now_, she added in her head, looking back over at Mike who had closed his eyes again. She felt a tiny smile cross her lips when she saw how his breathing evened out and his lashes fluttered gently against his sickly pale skin.

"Didn't take you long to drift off, huh, Stitches?" she mumbled fondly, stroking his hair back from his warm forehead. "Good. You need to sleep." Softly, she hot to her feet and pulled a blanket up over Mike's sleeping form, turning off the lamp and putting the old essay on the nightstand before turning to plant a kiss on his head.

As Paige turned to go, however, a gentle hand grabbed her wrist and she turned, looking down at a nearly-asleep Mike. "Yeah?" she whispered softly.

"Will you stay with me?" he mumbled, words sleep-slurred, eyes desperate for companionship, face painfully innocent.

A gentle smile spread across her face and she nodded, climbing back onto the bed and curling up beside him, wrapping an arm around his upper torso, careful of his injury. "Now get some sleep, Stitches. I'll be right here."

"I know you will be," Mike nodded, exhausted eyes closing again. "Thank you, Paige. For everything."

"You're welcome," she smiled warmly. "Good night, Mike."

"Night. Love you."

Paige froze, blinking in surprise, and then just smiled a little and curled up closer against Mike's side. "I love you too."

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GUYS I SHIP THEM SO HARD YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

Okay, now that that's out of the way... I hope you all liked this! Please tell me if you did, and please, please, please REVIEW!

~Rosey


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